Saturday night 11 hour swordfight!

[GENERALturtle.]

Holy $hit doug. That's a hell of a story. Burn that one in the memory bank forever. So what did you estimate this fish to weigh?

[Nick C]

Great! Now I know that 80's aren't big enough and I def. can't afford 130's!! Cool!
LOL.... great story!! That's the one we are all after and you hooked her! Cool deal! Next time you'll put the steal through her!!!!!

[The BEAST]

OMG!!!! The only thing I have to say is _)(!@$#_(&!@&&~+#)~&#~@!#%^%!!!!!!

[Broadbill]

Gotta Love it!

[Duke]

WOW, tremendous effort. Shows even an 80 with a full experienced crew with gunnels to take well over 45# of drag couldn't beat this fish.

[Captain Ollie]

Thats a tough break. I talked to someone with some experience from New Zealand a while back and he has routinely seen fights go OVER 20 hours on 600#+ fish. So bottom line is if you want to catch those beasties you have to be willing to put in the time, and fuel, and sweat, and patience, and more fuel, and more sweat, and............well you get the picture. At least she let you have one look at her.

[swordboy]

what a heartbreaker , that was a awsome story. good job anyway guys

[Lobstababe]

Awesome report!!

[shawnbenyo]

Originally Posted by Shark Tagger

Did you try getting wierd angles and forcing her directions she didnt want to go? Sometimes that helps out big time.

We tried every trick in the book. The two things that got any reaction were:

1) Getting ahead of the fish in the direction it was going and pulling it up while driving away from it in the same direction it was going. That brought in a few hundred feet of line on several occasions.

2) When the fish was traveling slowly, we ran large circles around it with the reel locked up in the back corner. That at least got some response from the fish. Following that manuever, the fish sounded from a depth of about 200 feet to well over 1300+ feet. We were in exactly 2000' of water at that time, and at the end, she was probably pretty darn close to the bottom.

I think that after the fish sounded we probably had over 75 pounds of drag on it, and it was still taking line.

If you happen to be fishing tonight, keep an eye out for one of those color changing LP's cruising in the water! You might find a big fish in front of it.

[Relentless33]

Dude, that's sick :shock:



=D> =D> =D> =D> =D>

Incredible work!

[2ndChance]

WHAT WRONG WITH YOU GUYS? Bunch of girls. Last tournment we fought that same fish for 5 1/2 hours plus the 11 1/2 hours = 17 hours..
(BTW.. did she have additional leader attached to her?) We felt the same way when the line just gave up. I remember when I posted my story I was told to "Stop hunter T-Rex with BB guns". so I upgrade to 50W with hollow core. You guys had 80w so what your reason? OR JUST MAYBE THERE A BIG GIRL OUT THERE AND SHE WON'T LET YOU TAKE HER HOME!! :lol:

Anyways, sometimes the story just continues.. nice try!! :lol:

[just2fish]

for sure next time, when i finally get to meet you guys i want to shake your hand and buy you a beer. awesome story.

[Ron.38 Special]

#7. Don't leave the 32 Luhrs at the dock, Its alot nicer to be able to go down stairs and fix a quick Grey Goose and Cranberry in the middle of the fight and cool off in the A/C !!

[RiskTaker]

Doug:

That is the best "recreational" swordfishing tale, I think that I have ever heard. :thumleft: Thank you so very much for sharing the story on-line; plus the float plan details.

Please give me a call when you want to go fishing again. From our last tale, when we fished together ... I thought it was a very "cool" night when we had only 4 lines in the water, then one of the almighty Tiagras fails on the Anti-reverse mode. Then after some jigging, that reel is retired for the evening. The final results on a short evening excursion: 2 fish in the boat, while only fishing 3 lines. I remember that one too. But those were only peanuts compared to the "mother elephant" , story you have just shared.

Please later, if you don't mind, try to tell, why you think the line broke, close to the rod. It seemed like you were well AWARE about yor drag settings. But at the end, you bumped, full measure. Were you confident about that choice? Or desparate?

In the end, that was a Vibrant female that got away. So we can celebrate that she may bear more pups, hopefully. She gives us a good example of how challenging our women can be. Plus she humbles us in the rational, that while we think we are the Captains, the lady figure is still the Admiral. :salut:

[swordfish123]

when you say the reel was locked down, is this different than just putting the drag all the way up? I have read something about spool locking features but never knew what this was?

[shawnbenyo]

Originally Posted by RiskTaker

Please later, if you don't mind, try to tell, why you think the line broke, close to the rod. It seemed like you were well AWARE about yor drag settings. But at the end, you bumped, full measure. Were you confident about that choice? Or desparate?

I use 100# Suffix. The stuff breaks way over 100 pounds, and it is very durable. I made the wind-ons and rigs myself. I knew that they wouldn't break. The fish was on for so long, that we knew the hooks would not pull under any pressure. They were seriously dug into some bone. I truly believed that the gear would break at the leader (280# fluorocarbon) from having been rubbed against and chafed for so long.

In the end, we lost the fish because when the reel was spooled, the line was not put on tight enough at the beginning of the spool. Don't get me wrong, it was put on tight, but apparently not tight enough. When that much pressure was exerted on the gear, the line dug into the the wraps underneath, and it cut itself. That's no one's fault but my own. I can assure you that I will be out later this week pulling a 5 gallon bucket with every rod re-wrapping the line in order to make sure it never happens again.

In hindsight, I wish we put full drag on the fish the second after it jumped. We were able to see the size of it, and we were able to see that it was not foul hooked, as the line appeared to be going straight to its mouth.

It wasn't desparation; it was necessity.

[Ambitious]

Awesome story, thanks for sharing it, amazing, why we all go I guess....

[chrisrt]

Amazing story. I just have one question. Why do you use Stainless, Double hooks? Isn't there a good chance that fish has it's mouth stapled shut now, possibly to starve to death? I don't want to rain on anyone's parade but it's just something I was thinking about.

[quack quack]

:shock: :shock: :shock: I love and hate when that happens

[Captain Ollie]